Silicon optical bench chips often have anisotropically etched grooves for holding optical fibers or other components. Also, SiOB chips can have dicing saw cuts that function as fiber stops, thereby providing passive longitudinal alignment for an optical fiber. Such optical bench chips are well known in the art.
In some cases, it is not desirable or practical to have dicing saw cuts. Particularly, dicing saw cuts can be undesirable because they typically must extend across an entire wafer. It would be an advance in the art to provide fiber stops in optical bench chips without requiring dicing saw cuts. Also, it would be an advance in the art of micromachining to provide a wider array of precision-made structures. Particularly, it would be advance to combine multiple micromachining techniques to provide unusual, useful structures.